This tells us more about how evangelicals felt about the politicians they thought were representing them than them going wobbly on their own agenda.
When surveyed on issues, 45 percent of evangelical voters responded that values issues, such as abortion and same-sex marriage, were what mattered most to them, and 59 percent said these issues were "extremely important."
Sure, there was migration to the Democrats in 2006 in the overall churchgoing universe. But evangelicals -- the one in four American voters Falwell helped awaken -- are unchanged and conservative.
If a revolution is waiting to happen, it is among black voters. And it is in the direction of conservatism. More and more blacks are getting it that the root of the problems in their communities flow from values -- family breakdown, promiscuity, drugs, crime and education.
Whereas nine in 10 blacks still vote for Democrats, in the 2006 Pew survey, 19 percent of black voters said they considered themselves part of the "religious right."
Anyone tempted to buy the rhetoric of Democrats that yes, they too are the party of values, should look again at the recent Supreme Court decision on partial-birth abortion.
This is simply the murder of a living, partially birthed child. The Supremes weighed in rightly and banned it. Seven out of 10 Americans say the procedure should be illegal. The leading Republican presidential candidates endorsed the court's decision. The three leading Democratic candidates condemned it.
When we read that most Americans are unhappy about the direction of the country, that candidates of both parties express concern about a "coarsening" of our culture, that people are sick of foulmouthed shock jocks and the violent nihilism of rap, there's a message.
That message is that Falwell helped point this country in a direction of decency in which it needs, and wants, to go.
Jerry Falwell is gone now. The evangelical movement he helped launch is alive and well.
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